The View From Tehran: Iran-e, Iran-c Or Iran-r?

OTHER VIEWS

June 27, 2002|By Thomas Friedman, the New York Times

TEHRAN, Iran -- So a senior Iranian official is explaining to me how the world looks from Tehran:

Let's see, he says, Iran helps the United States organize the Northern Alliance, a longtime Iranian ally, to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan -- a regime Iran staunchly opposed. ("We are civilized fundamentalists," unlike the Taliban, sniffed an Iranian official.) Once the Taliban were out, Iran quietly aided the United States in forming the interim government in Kabul. Not a single Iranian was involved in Sept. 11, not a single Iranian has been found in al-Qaeda, and Iran's nuclear reactor is under international inspection. Iran has the most democracy and freest press of any Muslim country in the Middle East. And as a thank you, President Bush labeled Iran part of the "axis of evil."

Pakistan, meanwhile, created the Taliban, gave sanctuary to members of al-Qaeda, supported Islamist terrorists in Kashmir, built an Islamic nuclear bomb, and its leader, a military dictator, got $1 billion in aid from America. Saudi Arabia financed the Taliban, has hundreds of its citizens in al-Qaeda, has private charities that support Hamas and Islamic Jihad, funds Islamic fundamentalist schools all over the world, was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers of 9-11, has no democracy, and its leader, Crown Prince Abdullah, was invited to President Bush's ranch.

I confess, I did laugh when it was all put that way. But I am not here to defend Iran, which has supported terrorism both against its own citizens and abroad. I would, though, defend the notion that Iran is the one Muslim Middle East country that is politically alive, full of ferment, with certain overlapping interests with the United States, and worth a fresh look as to how it might be nudged in the right direction -- not just branded evil and ignored.

Iran has three power centers. There is Iran-E -- the evil conservative clerics, intelligence services and shock troops of the regime, who still have a monopoly on all the tools of coercion and are responsible for Iran's support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and the killing of Iranian intellectuals a few years ago. Then there is Iran-C -- the rational conservatives among the clerics and bazaari merchants, who backed the Islamic revolution out of a real revulsion for the shah's secular despotism, but who favor democracy and the rule of law. For now, Iran-C is aligned with Iran-E.

Finally, there is Iran-R, all the reformers -- the economically strapped middle class, the rising student generation and former revolutionaries who are fed up with clerical rule. They want more democracy and less imposed religion, and are leading the opposition in Parliament, but have the least power.

That's why the key to peaceful change in Iran is a break within the conservative ruling elite. The key is to get Iran-C, the rational conservatives, to break with Iran-E, the dark conservatives, and forge a new alliance with the reformers. It's not impossible. There are many members of Iran-C who realize that clerical rule -- particularly of the incompetent, isolating and arbitrary variety found in Iran today -- is increasingly resented by the population and could eventually threaten the whole Islamic revolution.

What can the United States do? Most reformers said they would be helped by the United States resuming diplomatic ties and easing economic sanctions. Others told me the United States should go to the United Nations and publicly identify, with evidence, any Iranian officials involved in terrorism. "We ourselves don't know who's doing what, and if the United States put out the names it would freeze these people inside," said one reformer. (When an Iranian cleric recently proposed a small new tax to support the Palestinian uprising, it was rejected by the Iranian Parliament.) Others said the United States should speak up in defense of every Iranian who wants to run for office, or start a newspaper, and is being blocked by the clerics. The clerics claim Iran is a Muslim democracy, and America should constantly challenge them to prove it.

I don't know if all this advice is correct, but I do know that Iran is in flux and worth a new look from Washington -- not because the dark forces here are innocent of supporting terrorism, but because they are guilty of it; not because it would strengthen those dark forces, but because many here think it would weaken them; not because Iranians themselves have been unwilling to courageously confront those dark forces, but because they have; not because it would delay the demise of those dark forces, but because it might just hasten it.